Swedish viking metallers Amon Amarth and Indiana’s 3 Floyds brewing have announced the release of an imperial/strong porter called Ragnarok. Taking a look at the cover of their album Twilight of the Thunder Gods you can see that it is quite an appropriate name. My friend Stone over at Metal Odyssey has a great review of this album, here.

New Belgium brewing company also announced that they are due to release their latest beer in their Lips of Faith series with hard-rockers Clutch. The beer is described as a 9%ABV dark, sour ale with the brewery describing it as “A pronounced bass line of dark chocolate, coffee and black malts bridge the sourness of our dark wood ale for a fluid riff.”

I came across this great interview with my friend Andy Gould, manager of Rob Zombie and previously artists as diverse as Guns n Roses, Lionel Richie and Morrisey.

I met Andy earlier this year, he’s a good friend of Rick Sales (Slayer’s Manager). I invited Rick, Andy and some other friends of theirs to come to a special luncheon we had going at Rockford Wines. It was a great day, Andy is such a natural story teller, he had the rest of the guests at the lunch eating up his every word with stories of the music business. A few days later we were at the Soundwaves festival in Adelaide, watching Rob Zombie’s show and Andy grabbed my arm and said “Follow me.” We go out into the crowd and up into the front of house sound booth to watch the rest of the show, which is a great vantage point to watch a band. I really got to take in the whole Zombie performance and Rob puts on quite a spectacular show, with lighting, video and on-stage theatrics. The highlight for me though was later on Andy introduced me to Rob and John 5, great guys. We all ended up heading out to a strip club later that night, which made for a memorable evening indeed. Andy is a real wine lover, as you’ll hear in this interview and I hope to work with him in the future on a Zombie wine project.

The New School Brew blogspot has reported on Stone Brewings latest collaboration, this time in support of victims of the Japanese Tsunami. Stone has long been one of my favourite US craft brewers, ever since I got my first taste of Arrogant Bastard. They have done many collaborations over the past few years with small like-minded brewers across the globe, but this particular collaboration is close to my heart. Having lived in Japan for just over three years it is like my second home and with my wife also being Japanese the devastating tsunami affected us greatly. If you can drink a great beer and also aid in helping people recover from disaster then that is what I call a win win.

Toshi Ishii—former Stone Brewing intern cum brewer (’98-’01) and now owner of Ishii Brewing Co. in Guam—got in touch with Stone Brewmaster Mitch Steele shortly after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami disaster with a proposal to make a beer that could help with recovery efforts. Bryan Baird of Baird Brewing Company in Numazu, Japan was brought on board and ideas were soon flying.

“We wanted the beer to have a Japanese spirit, so we decided early on that we would be using green tea in the recipe,” explains Baird.

“We decided to brew an IPA to accentuate the tea’s herbal character,” adds Steele. “But this won’t be the typical, citrusy West Coast IPA flavor. We’re using Sorachi Ace, a variety of hops originally developed in Japan, as well as Pacifica, Crystal, Warrior, and Aramis, a brand new cultivar from the Alsace region of France.”

All proceeds (minimum $50,000) will be donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society. “We hope that Japan and its people will bounce back from the tsunami tragedy stronger than ever!” exclaims Ishii.

“A collaboration beer like this is a great way to demonstrate to Japan that they’re not alone,” Baird asserts. “They have friends, supporters, and empathizers all around the world.”